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Mutt Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 146 Location: USA

How Embarassing!

I touted MicroAdvantage's 1GB USB Drive in the Hot Deals forum and now mine fails after just 3 DAYS!

for no reason.... I get no detection and no cute blinking blue light..

Anyways, MicroAdvantage told me to bring it back to Office Max since I'm still in that 14day window.

My question is How do I make sure no one can get the files I have stored on it???

Someone over at DslReports suggested hooking it up to 9-volt batter, but I doubt that will do anything.

Any suggestions (note: If I bash it to bits, Office Max won't take it back)

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 7:41 am Post subject:

and you have deleted it from your hardware list, and tried to sense it again, right?

And you tried it on another computer.

If it is truly dead, then nobody's going to find your incriminating pictures of the neighbor's daughter. But I'd check the drive with another machine to make sure, and reinstall completely on your own machine (ie delete the device, uninstall drivers if present, reboot and try again).

Mutt Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 146 Location: USA

Yes, I've tried it on other machines... at least 4 that were running Windows XP - no special drivers were installed/needed..

not so much worried about the incriminating por.... er, photos... but I was running Portable Thunderbird and Portable Firefox off of it, so it's got all my email for the last month (and some incriminating bookmarked sites Wink

)

So, what you're saying is that it is highly unlikely that the manufacturer will try to revive it, then have all my files?

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:30 pm Post subject:

Nothing kills complicated electrical devices like a large zap of static electricity.

You could probably put it in the microwave for a second or two as well.

Have fun!

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 2:47 pm Post subject:

MrE wrote:
Yes, I've tried it on other machines... at least 4 that were running Windows XP - no special drivers were installed/needed..

not so much worried about the incriminating por.... er, photos... but I was running Portable Thunderbird and Portable Firefox off of it, so it's got all my email for the last month (and some incriminating bookmarked sites )

So, what you're saying is that it is highly unlikely that the manufacturer will try to revive it, then have all my files?

My guess is they'll toss it if it doesn't work. But if they try to get it working, it will be via formatting it.

Mutt Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 146 Location: USA

West wrote:
Nothing kills complicated electrical devices like a large zap of static electricity.

You could probably put it in the microwave for a second or two as well.

Have fun!

I thought about doing that, but worried about the rubber housing melting - guess a few seconds would do it, though.

what about car jumper cables? Twisted Evil

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:54 pm Post subject:

MrE wrote:
West wrote:
Nothing kills complicated electrical devices like a large zap of static electricity.

You could probably put it in the microwave for a second or two as well.

Have fun!

I thought about doing that, but worried about the rubber housing melting - guess a few seconds would do it, though.

what about car jumper cables?

On the screensavers they used a Van de Graaff generator, if you dont happen to have one of those lying around then try a zapper gun (things the police use to take you down) Alternatively a car battery and some jumper cables would (probably) work.

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 6:25 pm Post subject:

Degaussing would be a completely failsafe method.

Got any 5 pound or larger magnets?

Mutt Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 146 Location: USA

TOMaxwell wrote:
Degaussing would be a completely failsafe method.

Got any 5 pound or larger magnets?

I thought magnets didn't have any effect on Flash drives.. only on disk-based drives.

EEps · Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 12:08 am Post subject:

I think he might be suggesting that you smash the drive with the magnet... Wink Smile

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 2:44 am Post subject:

D'OH!

Moderator Joined: 26 May 2001 Posts: 8155 Location: Borneo

EdisonRex wrote:
MrE wrote:
Yes, I've tried it on other machines... at least 4 that were running Windows XP - no special drivers were installed/needed..

not so much worried about the incriminating por.... er, photos... but I was running Portable Thunderbird and Portable Firefox off of it, so it's got all my email for the last month (and some incriminating bookmarked sites )

So, what you're saying is that it is highly unlikely that the manufacturer will try to revive it, then have all my files?

My guess is they'll toss it if it doesn't work. But if they try to get it working, it will be via formatting it.

I doubt it. It is most likely a loose contact if it can be repaired.

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:34 pm Post subject:

MrE wrote:
now mine fails after just 3 DAYS!

MrE wrote:
it's got all my email for the last month

you acquired a month's worth of email in 3 days? Wink

Mutt Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 146 Location: USA

thanks for all the suggestions...

I returned the da*n thing today at 1a.n (after nuking Wink

).. got a refund and bought a Lexar 1GB drive that was on sale for $79.00 + $30 mail in rebate (sux, that is EXACTLY what I was trying to avoid by going with MicroAdvantage in the first place- hate MIR's)

Anyways, get the Lexar home, plug it in- up pops this Jump Secure software (cuz the drive as an Autorun.ini) and asks me if I want to set up the drive for Public and Secure areas - sure, what the heck... I set 700MB secure, the rest "public", set a password.. voila, done...

One problem, now the drive asks me for password, i enter the pw, and it says "Unable to mount drive - please restart software" !!! WTF ??

So, pull out manual - hey, it says if you have major problems (like Windows not seeing the drive), just reformat it with the special included software - ok, fine... i choose reformat - it asks for the friggin pw again, but same "Can't mount drive" error...

Unbelievable, so now I have a 1GB drive that windows can only see 300MB!!

The manual also warns against formatting the USB drive with anything other than the special software that is included... I think this is BS.

I'll boot up my SLAX cd and see if it can see the whole USB partition.
(either way, I'm returning this crap tomorrow - I'll go with GnuPGP if I need folder encryption)